Murky world of PC game key reselling exposed by indie developer

[Turtlewithnoshell]

Don't try to defend an enabler because a small portion of their business might actually be legit. Exactly what you did. If said drug dealer example from above donates a small portion of his profits to a charity does that suddenly make him a good guy? No...

But you don't have any proof of what you're saying? I could call you a drug dealer but does that make it true just because drug gealing is bad?

[Realtalk]

G2A is a marketplace, just like Aliexpress, Ebay, Amazon marketplace or your typical mall.

No. G2A is a fence. Nothing more.

"A fence or receiver is an individual who knowingly buys stolen property for later resale, sometimes in a legitimate market. The fence thus acts as a middleman between thieves and the eventual buyers of stolen goods who may not be aware that the goods are stolen."

Describes them to a t

[Grosbill]

Oh yea?

So how are all these AAA keys acquired on/before release dates for much cheaper then MSRP if it's just honest people trying to sell game keys they won't use? You could say they got them with graphics cards, but there are much more games not given for free with gpus then ones that are yet it happens with them all.

Nobody gives a shit and joe schmo selling some keys he got in a bundle that aren't even worth $1 each, that isn't where G2A is making big money.

They are sold wholesale by .... the publishers. How else do you expect storefronts like GmG, Impulse, Humble Store, CKeys and co to get those games cheap and early? Buying power gives you better prices, that's how it works.

And the G2A shield is a second layer of protection where you don't even have to first file a dispute. Also please note I've recieved full refunds from G2A without having their shield option before.

[Deleted]

simple solution,
Developer out right bans all keys that where bought and then charged back, this leaves G2A with the problem to solve.

[siafu]

i bought a devillian when it came out on g2a, a week later my patron benefits where removed, i asked the support why, they said the game was purchased originally with a fraudulent credit card, so i complained at g2a 1 week later they give me another key.

this time my benefits get removed after a day for the same reason, but now the g2a claim is locked and u cant complain anymore about that purchase.

fortunately i paid with paypal complained to them and got my money back. so my advice is either don't buy from marketplace sites like g2a/kinguin or buy via paypal so u can claim ur moneyback cleanly without having to deal with them.

[Ealyssa]

Why do company's want to give out less and less review codes? Because people throw them up on G2A and sell them.

Like I said people rag all over Activision, Ubisoft and EA while defending G2A... Its fucken priceless.

yeah sure they give hundreds of thousand review keys... The BS is real.

And they could totally give temporary keys as review code. Something with a 2-3 months time limit. They are generating the keys, they have total control on how they get out. If their keys are on a grey market site its because they sold them in a bulk discount price to someone first.

If these keys were really shady they would deactivate them in a heartbeat. They just know these keys are legit and they were stupid enough to not sell them directly by themselves and want a bigger part of the pie.

[siafu]

btw a friend of mine had a website that sold keys, legit keys sold by suppliers he was contacted by the polish government asking him for help regarding transations so they could catch one is suppliers that evaded 50 million Euros in taxes.

[Jtbrig7390]

yeah sure they give hundreds of thousand review keys... The BS is real.

And they could totally give temporary keys as review code. Something with a 2-3 months time limit. They are generating the keys, they have total control on how they get out. If their keys are on a grey market site its because they sold them in a bulk discount price to someone first.

If these keys were really shady they would deactivate them in a heartbeat. They just know these keys are legit and they were stupid enough to not sell them directly by themselves and want a bigger part of the pie.

Well clearly someone hasn't been fallowing the topic. Why deactvating keys and charge backs don't happen much has been explained.

Feel free to read over the past few pages.

The Ubisoft story is a perfect example on why no matter what the developer will lose when this shit happens.

[Tech614]

They are sold wholesale by .... the publishers. How else do you expect storefronts like GmG, Impulse, Humble Store, CKeys and co to get those games cheap and early? Buying power gives you better prices, that's how it works.

Publishers clearly state what partners they sell to on their corporate sites. You list a bunch of legitimate sellers then throw in the bullshit of CDkeys and G2A to compare them. The lulz is real.

[demonicpanda]

How did they not have a mechanism in place to disable charged back serial codes????

[Grosbill]

No. G2A is a fence. Nothing more.

"A fence or receiver is an individual who knowingly buys stolen property for later resale, sometimes in a legitimate market. The fence thus acts as a middleman between thieves and the eventual buyers of stolen goods who may not be aware that the goods are stolen."

Describes them to a t

G2A is a marketplace, look up their definition. It should also be noted that G2A directly sales keys bought wholesale from publishers.

When you don't know or understand how a company operates, you should probably refrain from posting about them, because by your very definition, every marketplace provider is "a fence".

Publishers clearly state what partners they sell to on their corporate sites. You list a bunch of legitimate sellers then throw in the bullshit of CDkeys and G2A to compare them. The lulz is real.

CDKeys is as legitimate as can be.

Also you're clearly delusionnal if you somehow believe business partners divulge their plans with you. EA, Ubisoft and Activision will provide wholesale keys for way below MSRP to meet sellthrough goals and they do it all the time. Those keys end up either on marketplaces like Kinguin, Amazon, Ebay or G2A or they're sold directly to GMG or Impulse who then take a cut out of their profit to catch your attention.

[Tech614]

CDKeys is as legitimate as can be.

Also you're clearly delusionnal if you somehow believe business partners divulge their plans with you. EA, Ubisoft and Activision will provide wholesale keys for way below MSRP to meet sellthrough goals and they do it all the time. Those keys end up either on marketplaces like Kinguin, Amazon, Ebay or G2A or they're sold directly to GMG or Impulse who then take a cut out of their profit to catch your attention.

CDKeys being legit, don't make me laugh.

I would love to see you prove any ounce of this drivel in your post, because it's all false bologna. Will you even make an attempt at it? I wonder.

Once again you can clearly see verified sellers of keys on any publisher's site. Those are the only people they're directly "selling" keys to.

[Azrile]

If you don´t want this to happen, then don´t allow your game to be put into bundles. People buy bundles for just a few games and then many sell the other keys which often makes the games they actually wanted free.

Also it is stupid for this guy to write this as he ´lost´ this money. I am not a fan of piracy, but I say the same thing. People who pirate a game were probably never going to be your customers. You can´t say that a thousand people who pirated a $10 game cost the developer $10,000

[Edge-]

If you don´t want this to happen, then don´t allow your game to be put into bundles. People buy bundles for just a few games and then many sell the other keys which often makes the games they actually wanted free.

It's not just bundles. The issues also arise through credit card fraud (steal card, buy a few hundred keys to resell knowing they'll likely be charged back by the owner of the card) or keys that "fall off the truck". It's happened with Ubisoft and Far Cry 4, which had never (and has never?) appeared in any form of bundle by that point (it was barely 2 months old).

Also it is stupid for this guy to write this as he ´lost´ this money. I am not a fan of piracy, but I say the same thing. People who pirate a game were probably never going to be your customers.

And people who still buy the game through these sites would have likely purchased it eventually anyways. That's not accounting for fees etc. that arise as a result of chargebacks. if they were going to pirate the game to begin with, they would have pirated it rather than spent money through a site like G2A.

You can´t say that a thousand people who pirated a $10 game cost the developer $10,000

And he's not making this claim. He's linking it to purchases made through G2A, not downloads from a site where you can pirate games from.

[BigAssBoy]

I am fine with G2A, in fact I am selling 12 of the WoW Battlechest I got from seeing the movie on there. Does blizzard deserve a cut of the sale, Hell no, they have already been compensated when they set up the promotion to get them free with a ticket purchase.

[Jtbrig7390]

And people who still buy the game through these sites would have likely purchased it eventually anyways. That's not accounting for fees etc. that arise as a result of chargebacks. if they were going to pirate the game to begin with, they would have pirated it rather than spent money through a site like G2A.

That's why I said this is worse then pirating.

With pirating you can't prove there is a loss of sell and sometimes there is even a gain.

But with this no matter how it turns out the devs lose money. If they do a charge back they still lose money and there credit gets hurt. There is no postive spin on this for devs. Big AAA company's like Ubisoft can take a hit but smaller devs like in the OP can't. Hell look at the backlash Ubisoft got when it wasn't even there fault.

Some people seem to think if the devs lose $3500 and do a charge back they get the $3500 when that is not the case at all. I even linked how charge backs can hurt both devs and customers.

How people can defend G2A and sites alike is beyond me. Just pirate the fucken game you will do less damage that way.

If you support G2A you support theft and have no right to bitch about what any of the company's do.

[Grosbill]

CDKeys being legit, don't make me laugh.

I would love to see you prove any ounce of this drivel in your post, because it's all false bologna. Will you even make an attempt at it? I wonder.

Once again you can clearly see verified sellers of keys on any publisher's site. Those are the only people they're directly "selling" keys to.

Read this and stop acting like a know it all

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost...&postcount=110

[Jtbrig7390]

Read this and stop acting like a know it all

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost...&postcount=110

No one gives any fucks about some poster on Negogaf. I think ill take the word of devs over some guy on Neogaf thanks.

[Triptych]

This is the first time I've heard of G2A; they certainly sound like an unethical bunch.

I'm surprised that their lowlife customer base hasn't found a new way to abuse the G2A system, and rip them off in the same way that G2A are depriving the original developers; i.e. purchase a game key from their website, install and register using that key, then contact G2A and tell them that the key was a dud and demand the money back.

[Tech614]

Read this and stop acting like a know it all

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost...&postcount=110

That guys word is about as good as yours kid. AKA not worth squat. He was a guy getting butt hurt because he is one of the people scamming developers out of money and got pretty much shat on in that thread for it if you actually read the entire thing instead of just trying to be cool and link a single post.